I love reading. I have enough time on public transport and for me it is a way to disconnect from work. Although I am pretty techie and online in many aspects, I still like turning actual pages, so a kindle is not an option for me.
But most books I only read once, and am not necessarily interested in keeping them. I tried selling them on flee markets and on ebay and ricardo. However, this doesn't really work that well, as for the buyer it becomes expensive because of the shipping (there is no cheap way to send books in CH). And at the flee markets it is probably not the right audience for selling books. Throwing them away is definitely not my idea either, even if they pile up in the house in every corner.
After a little research I discovered www.bookcrossing.com. It's a webpage, where you register your books and "release" them. This means, you leave them in your hotel room for the next guest, or at the airport, at a coffee table, bus station etc...into the wild as they call it. The finder is prompted to register as collector and then release it again after he has read it. With a tracking number you can follow your books around the world.
In Basel and Baselland there is about 500 registered book crossers, so maybe, if I start releasing them, I can make somebody happy with my book and it finds new readers.
Want a book? I registered the following ones today:
- The Hanging Girl – Jussi Adler Olsen
- Sarah's Key – Tatiana de Rosnay
- Inferno – John Brown
- The Edge of the Water – Elizabeth George
- The Edge of Nowhere – Elizabeth George
- The Secret between us – Louise Douglas
- 22 Britannia Road – Amanda Hodginson
- The Opium War – Julia Lovell
- The Success Principles – Jack Canfield
- The Girl on the train – Paula Hawkins
- He's just not that into you
- Der Feind im Schatten – Henning Mankell
- Malavita – Tonino Benacquvista
- Auf Ehre und Gewissen – Elizabeth George
- Markttreiben – Nicola Förg
If you are interested in any of those, let me know the next days...before I release them into the wild :-)